Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to reduce translation and interpretation costs in the courts.

The Department provides interpreters in compliance with its international obligations to ensure that trials are fair.

Following a competitive process, the Department entered into a contract for language services which went live on 30^th January 2012. The contract was introduced to tackle the inefficiencies and inconsistencies in the previous system. The contract has delivered significant improvements so far and we now have a system that is robust, sustainable and able to deliver a quality service at an affordable level. As a result of the contract, we spent £27m less in the first two years it was running.

The contract remains on target to achieve the forecasted savings over its whole life term.

We will of course continue work to further drive improvements in performance and to reduce the burden on taxpayers.